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Sam Allardyce described James McCarthy as a “shining light” as Everton's Irish international took another step forward in his recovery from the hamstring problems which have plagued him for 18-months.

But the Blues boss admitted the midfielder’s comeback will have to be managed carefully.

McCarthy started his first Premier League match of the season at Bournemouth on Saturday and was introduced for another influential half-hour against Manchester United.

Allardyce said: “We recovered from going a goal down with our substitutes and James McCarthy for me was the shining light of the recovery - because he actually went and tackled somebody and showed the rest of our team how to we had to go about our job in shutting Manchester United down.”

McCarthy has been missing for large chunks of the last two seasons and Allardyce admitted there is a psychological hurdle the player has to overcome.

“There is still some doubt in James’ mind because of the length of time he has been out and the injury recurring in the same area," the Blues boss added. "We are delicately managing it, like we have with Yannick Bolasie.

“We won’t see the best of Yannick Bolasie for eight or nine matches but we have to put him on otherwise we will never get him into the swing of it again.

“It’s not an ideal situation to be in - and James McCarthy has been out for 18-months to two years which is even longer than Yannick, even though it has been a lot of little injuries rather than one serious injury.

“We will try and overcome that problem.

“If we can put Seamus Coleman back in that and Bainesy back in that we will get a stronger team I think. And if we can find someone in January who can score goals we will get better.”

Everton 0-2 Manchester United

The Blues boss added: “Our attacking powers are limited. I know that. I knew that before I arrived here. “That’s why I’ve worked so hard on keeping clean sheets.

“That’s going to be our main objective to make sure we pick up more points and wins by not conceding goals, knowing that one goal can win us three points because our ratio of chances created is very limited.

“That’s because we need to strengthen that front line.

“We need to maintain our defensive solidity and I was very disappointed by the way we conceded the two goals.

“We gave them the opportunity to score when we didn’t need to. It was down to our errors really rather than Manchester United’s great play.”